Homework 19

Christopher R
At first I asked my mother what she thought about death and dying as well as illness. The first thing so she got a piece of paper and start to write down what she thought. She wrote “Death is a very sad moment in our lives. We all have to go through it and we have to grow up with our brothers and sisters and uncles, and cousins and mothers, and fathers but they all have to die”. So I told her that with all the people in our family that died there has to be more to her feelings about the topic. I would think that someone who has had so many deaths so close together that there would be more emotion to it then something that could go into a dictionary. So after starting over a couple of times I started to extract some of the feelings I think she had been holding back and she even started to tear up in some of the conversation we were having.

Two of her best friend’s one of my godmothers died. Not recently but both of them were really close to my mother and she was always there with both of them while they were close to death. One of them named, Denise was my mother’s childhood best friend. She became ill from cancer. She had cancer in her breast and progressingly became sicker after being diagnosed with this. Her breast was removed and it seemed like things were starting to get better because the cancer had started to go away. But my mother recalls seeing her at her worse where she had to go to her friend’s house and do all of her cooking and all of her laundry. Even though she knew when someone has a sickness like this even though she can hope and pray that she gets better or there is a cure you have to know this person will most likely die. After her breast was removed, the cancer came back in Denise’s lung and it started to spread to her brain. This made Denise turn blind and things started to seem worse from here until her sight came back. While she was saying this to me I thought about how the emotional rollercoaster of someone being sick could really affect the loved ones of this person. Then the cancer started getting worse and Denise died. This was my mother’s best friend; I could only imagine how much sleep someone could lose from this. Then another one of my mother’s friends died.

I would imagine that a broken heart could only be mended when the thing that broke their heart was forgotten. If this was true I could only imagine what kind of condition my mother is in. Within the next 5 years, another one of my mother’s friends passed away. In the conversation she said, “When someone is sick and they die it’s not as hard because you have time to come to the conclusion that this person is going to die, when the person just dies out of nowhere it really hurts”. Her best friend Barbara also died and no one knew where she was for 2 days until she was found dead at the bottom of the basement stairs. This constant loss that my mother was feeling really started to build up when he aunt died, her brother died, her mother was sick, her sister was sick, and her other sister was diagnosed with cancer. “One person can only take so much pain” , when she said this it makes people think about how hard living is because you have to let go to the ones you love most. When all of this happens at the same time it makes it even worse because you’re letting go to everyone you love at once.

My mother and her mother and most likely many generations before them believe in Christianity and she brought up the idea of seeing someone who had been alive to welcome you into heaven. Although I believe there is a God I don’t know exactly what part of Christianity I believe in. So I guess the teachings of religion changes with me. I was baptized but I don’t know a lot about my religion. My mother brought up this prophet like idea that her aunt presented to her before she died. Her aunt predicted what would happen. Words from my mom: “She told her daughter that she was going to be buried between one and two because she wanted people told able to get there, and she told everyone it was going to rain, but when we left our house it was bright and clear outside. After the pastor preached her funeral, there was a big dark cloud hanging over the church. Everyone went outside to bury her body, when everyone was outside and the pastor commenced her body back to the earth, I was standing there talking. There was a strong wind and everyone felt it because it was a cold wind so people said ‘that was Aunt Lucille saying goodbye for the last time’. Then while we were eating it started to pour hard for 15 minutes. Everyone had known about the prediction about it raining and believed it was a prophet like statement.”

In regards to the people who raised her, “I guess you can say, they are both very religious they were brought up very religious. They believe everyone meets their maker, and when death comes they accept it. We have to accept it. You don’t try to question why, but we were brought up to not question why. Everyone has to die because of the second judgment day and that’s what I was taught.” I think my mother’s family taught her a lot about what she believes now a lot of people where she lived had the same beliefs. Me, being someone who lives in New York I got a more multicultural view on death and illness. Even though I’m with my family most of the time when things like this do come up I get a better and wider perspective on what people think.


I also really like the line "death ain't nothing but birth in reverse" I don't agree with it but I like the idea of it.